1 last camp spot?

YES ITS TRUE THERE IS ONLY ONE LAST CAMP SPOT.

I will do my best to get more but it is never easy. Please do not wait until the last minute to turn in your money to save a camp spot. The time is now.

If you have any questions please contact me at the church office and I'll be happy to answer any questions of yours.

Whats a Vuvuzela?

By far the world's most annoying instrument,The Vuvuzela has given many soccer (football for you die hards) fans head aches, permanent hearing loss, and a hatred for any form of competition where a large crowd may gather. The vuvuzela has been the subject of controversy, with a sound pressure of 120 dB which is the threshold of pain, at one meter from the bell. In response to the controversy, a new model has a modified mouthpiece that reduces the volume by 20 dB.

In response to criticism of the horn's use, President of FIFA Sepp Blatter commented, "I have always said that Africa has a different rhythm, a different sound. I don't see banning the music traditions of fans in their own country. Would you want to see a ban on the fan traditions in your country?"

On June 19, 2010 at a Major League Baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and Florida Marlins at Sun Life Stadium in Miami, Florida, the first 15,000 fans were given miniature vuvuzelas as part of a promotion.

Personally I find the horn to be rather interesting. If I were to watch a soccer game and not hear the horn I would feel like my experience in somehow incomplete. Its like going to a baseball game and singing Take Me Out To The Ball Game.

I personally would like to see more vuvuzelas pop up more places where people gather. What would happen if we brought them into our staff meetings, company picnics, town hall meetings, and our places of worship? What if instead of clapping after a worship song when the worship leader says, "lets give Him some praise" we all took out our vuvuzelas and played those as loud as we could? I for one am totally into the idea!

An Interesting Chapter

I was reading a chapter from Mark Driscoll's book, Vintage Jesus and I thought I'd post a blog asking for your feedback. Here is the premise of the chapter. Jesus came to earth and revealed himself to us in each of these three ways; prophet, priest, and king. "As prophet, Jesus confronts us and calls us to repentance of sin. As priest, Jesus comforts us and comes to us to save us from sin and enable new life. As king, Jesus commands us to relinquish authority of our life so that every facet of our life is under constant sanctifying transformation." Below are general statements about these categories taken from his book.

1. Prophet + King - Priest = Jesus of Fundamentalism. Its weakness is that Jesus is cold, distant, stern, harsh and even cruel. This lacks the peace, mercy, and forgiveness of sins.

2. Prophet + Priest - King = Jesus of Evangelicalism. Its weakness is that people call Jesus Lord, call his Word true, and then do whatever they want in their "personal life" (including sin) because they are king, not Jesus.

3. Priest + King - Prophet = Jesus of Liberalism. Its weakness is that Jesus is seen as someone who would never offend us, raise his voice, hurt our feelings, speak harshly, or command individuals to repent with a sense of urgency.

My question is, which one of these three categories do you find yourself in? Personally I find myself in the second category. Sadly, I love to do things my way. Whenever I come across a difficult passage in scripture such as the sermon on the mount, I tend to flip right on by thinking that someday when I'm really "holy" and a "great Christian" I'll be able to live a certain way. So, where do you stand?

Prayer Night

Tonight is the 3rd night of our series, "Taking Responsibility For Your Life" and light bulbs beginning to flicker inside the minds of our students. Tonight's focus is on prayer. If you're a Christian, you have a responsibility to pray.

Many of our students struggle with prayer. They feel like they are talking to themselves or a wall. Daydreaming and loss of focus is another common experience they face. They also ask the question, "If God knows everything, including my thoughts, then why do I have to pray"? My favorite response is a simple one. We pray because Jesus prayed.

While I struggle with prayer in some of the same ways our students do in prayer I have been able to grow largely because of two great books. Bill Hybels book, Too Busy Not To Pray, and Philip Yancey's book, Prayer: Does it make any difference? I simply want to pass these to books off to you and hope they will help you with prayer and connecting with God.

My prayer is that our youth group will be one that takes responsibility for their lives and prays boldly!